A title made for Thailand

July 31, 2012 1:00 am

Next month's Miss World pageant has a new competition segment - for the Miss World Multimedia title, with Facebook the main factor - and you just know that Miss Thailand World Nachat "Vanessa" Muangkod has a great shot at winning it.

The idea is that all the contestants create a Facebook page and see how many "likes" they pick up. Vanessa's "MissWorldThailand" page has more than 130,000 of them, which is 39,000 more likes than the official pageant page!

In fact, the Miss Thailand World Organisation claims Vanessa is the most popular of all the 2012 contestants on the social media. By comparison, Miss Nepal has 85,00 likes, and Miss Philippines 32,000.

Vanessa has that Thai knack with social media and regularly uploads videos and comments. "I recently decided to switch to a vegetarian diet," she declared. "Food tastes better, I'm loving all the veggies, and I'm glad to be doing something good for my body and mind."

Her good English certainly helps, as do the photos she posts of her with fellow contestants. Plus, once the word spreads in Thailand, which has more than 15.6 million Facebook users, we've got this title nailed.

Jidarin - "Jida" for short - lives in the US with her mum and doesn't speak Thai fluently, but all the photos her proud dad posted online earned her a lot of fans, as did the glimpses of her and Gina in magazines and on Channel 7.

Gina said she's pretty strict with the kid. "She'll have to grow up a bit more before she gets a boyfriend. If I see any guys near her I give them my fierce face."

But she's okay with Jida doing some modelling. And, when asked if she'd like to be a Thai beauty queen too one day, Jida said, "I'm thinking about it."